Welcome to dVerse, the poets’ pub! It’s 28 March – and that means it’s National Weed Appreciation Day. Obviously.

Well, you can celebrate whatever weed you like, but officially, this is a day to celebrate garden weeds. By definition a weed is a wild plant growing in a place where it’s not wanted. That means the dandelions in the vegetable patch are weeds, along with the daisies in the lawn. If you’re a gardener you’ve definitely had your battles with weeds.

I looked it up, and couldn’t find out why 28 March was chosen, or who chose it, or where this day came from. However, lots of weeds are starting to appear – and this is the hungry gap, when weeds like nettles became important sources of nutrition back in the days before supermarkets.

Last summer, our local verges were left to grow wild. Signs were put up by the council explaining that this was deliberate. The weeds had become wild flowers – and were left to provide support and food for bees and other insects, that are so important for the ecosystem. No Mow May has become a growing movement in the UK – leaving lawns uncut to allow early pollen producers to do their thing. And think of those small, soft green shoots pushing up through tarmac, finding places to grow between paving stones. What tenacity! What determination! Yes, weeds deserve our appreciation.

Here’s John Masefield:

An Epilogue

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too.

And here’s Walt Whitman

The first dandelion

Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass—innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Short poems for small things that creep in at the edges!

And here’s a longer poem by James McKean:

Bindweed

There is little I can do
besides stoop to pluck them
one by one from the ground,
their roots all weak links,
this hoard of Lazaruses popping up
at night, not the Heavenly Blue
so like silk handkerchiefs,
nor the Giant White so timid
in the face of the mooon,
but poor relations who visit
then stay. They sleep in my garden.
Each morning I evict them.
Each night more arrive, their leaves
small, green shrouds,
reminding me the mother root
waits deep underground
and I dig but will never find her
and her children will inherit
all that I’ve cleared
when she holds me tighter
and tighter in her arms.

• Write a poem
• Link your blog post back to here, and link up to our old friend Mr Linky
• Take a little wander and admire some poetic weeds.

And we haven’t even mentioned brambles or nettles or thistles or couch grass…

You know what to do! Write a poem inspired by weeds. It can be joyful or irritated, you can admire their strength or complain about their cussedness.

Pop a link back to this post on your own post, and link up to Mr Linky – and then take a little stroll through some other poetry gardens and see what their weeds are like!